Kognitos vs Orkes Conductor (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Kognitos and Orkes Conductor share a 2.2 GPA, both have a free plan and their prices can't be set side by side, so the choice depends on which features you need.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
They get the same grade on all five counts.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Orkes Conductor
Workflow orchestration for AI agents and services, built on Conductor
Free plan
Which one is for you
Pick Kognitos if
- Fits if you run finance or operations processes and want them written down in plain English
- Makes sense if you want to try a free workspace before any contract
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you need a published price, as paid use is quoted by sales
- Watch out: the free workspace's limits are not stated on the pages read
- Tight if you want short terms, since contracts are annual or multi-year and shorter terms are for pilots
- Watch out: the security claims on the page, such as SOC 2 and HIPAA, are the vendor's own
Pick Orkes Conductor if
- Fits if you are a developer who wants to try a workflow engine in a free sandbox
- Works for engineering teams ready to buy Enterprise for agent and service orchestration
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want a price, as Enterprise is quoted through a demo
- Skip it if you need production use on the free plan, since it is not recommended for that
- Tight if you are a team: multiple users and detailed access control need Enterprise
- Watch out: free support is community-only
- Too light for no-code users, as the work is workflows and SDK code
How we grade them
| 2.2GPAKognitosFair | 2.2GPAOrkes ConductorFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CPaid pricing is quoted by sales and priced by transactions and agent complexity, so there is no figure to compare with the category. | CNo price is published, only a free sandbox and a quoted Enterprise plan. Nothing to compare against the category's $24 middle. |
| Free plan and trial | CA free workspace lets you write and run automations, but the FAQ states no limits, so we can't say where it stops. | CA free managed Developer Edition with most Enterprise features, but only for individual developers, not for teams or production, with community-only support. |
| Features | CEnglish-as-code automation, exception handling and prebuilt AI employees. The listing shows enterprise system connections but no published usage caps. | CWorkflows, agents, a visual editor, SDKs, prompt studio and security controls. Multiple user accounts and detailed access control need Enterprise. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record, and you learn how to describe processes and connect SAP, Oracle or NetSuite. | CNo store rating on record. You model workflows in an editor or code with SDKs, which takes a learning curve. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, with connections to SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Workday and Salesforce. | BWeb console, SDKs and an API, with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini and GitHub listed. No desktop or phone app. |
| Best for | writing back-office automations in plain English | workflow engine for agents and services |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Kognitos and Orkes Conductor. How we grade
Where they differ
- Orkes Conductor is open source, according to its own site.
In commonFree planWebWorkflow automationAI agentsNo-code
At a glance
| Kognitos | Orkes Conductor | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | Free workspace; paid use is consumption-based and quoted by sales | Not published |
| Free plan | A free workspace where you can sign up, write automations in plain English and run them. The FAQ states no limits. | Developer Edition: free managed sandbox with the open-source features and most Enterprise features, for individual developers and not for production use. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Kognitos | Orkes |
| Price read from | kognitos.com | orkes.io |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 13, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Kognitos
- Paid pricing is not published. The FAQ describes consumption-based pricing, and a quote comes from the sales team.
- The vendor offers enterprise contracts with annual and multi-year terms; shorter terms are mentioned only for pilots and mid-market.
- Security claims such as SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR readiness come from the vendor's own FAQ.
- The free workspace's limits are not stated on the pages read.
Orkes Conductor
- No prices are published: the Developer Edition is free and Enterprise is quoted through a demo.
- The free Developer Edition is for individual developers and is not recommended for production or for teams.
- Multiple user accounts and detailed access control need the Enterprise plan.
- Support on the free edition is community-only.
Key features
Kognitos
- English as Code
- Automations are written as plain-English instructions rather than code or screen-scraping bots, so business users can build and maintain them.
- Exception handling
- When an agent meets an exception it pauses, a person answers in plain English, and the run resumes from where it stopped. The vendor says the answer is kept for next time.
- Deterministic execution
- The vendor says agents follow the process as defined and log each decision, and it describes the engine as neurosymbolic rather than a pure language-model agent.
- Prebuilt AI Employees and apps
- The navigation lists 61 AI Employee roles and more than 100 apps, with solutions for finance, banking, healthcare and manufacturing.
- Enterprise system connections
- The FAQ says Kognitos connects to SAP and more than 200 other enterprise systems, including Oracle, NetSuite, Workday and Salesforce.
Orkes Conductor
- Agents and workflows together
- Orchestrates agent decisions, service calls and human approvals in one execution that keeps its state at every step.
- Visual editor and SDKs
- Workflows can be built visually or defined in code, with open-source SDKs for Java, TypeScript, Python, Go, C# and more.
- LLM tasks and prompt studio
- The platform capability list includes LLM tasks and an AI Prompt Studio alongside human tasks, event handlers, webhooks and a scheduler.
- Hosting choices
- Fully hosted by Orkes, or hosted in the customer's cloud account or on-premises, with dedicated clusters and VPC options on Enterprise.
- Security controls
- Lists SOC 2 Type II, role-based access, single sign-on, audit logs, secrets and end-to-end data encryption.
Plans
Kognitos
Free workspace$0
Sign up, build automations in plain English and run them without a paid engagement. The FAQ does not state usage limits.
EnterpriseCustom
Consumption-based: priced by transactions processed and agent complexity, with annual or multi-year contracts, quoted by sales.
Orkes Conductor
Developer Edition$0
Free managed sandbox for prototyping, with community support. Meant for one developer, not production.
EnterpriseCustom
Hosted by Orkes or in your own cloud account, SSO, audit logs, support with SLA-backed response times, up to a 99.99% availability SLA.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Kognitos or Orkes Conductor?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Kognitos starts at Free workspace; paid use is consumption-based and quoted by sales, and Orkes Conductor publishes no starting price.
Which has a free plan, Kognitos or Orkes Conductor?
As of Nov 13, 2026, both Kognitos and Orkes Conductor have a free plan.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.